Sarah Shaddick has put her Christmas tree up and started wrapping presents for her baby daughter Halle, excited about their first festive season together, despite the new mum living under the shadow of incurable cancer.
Just weeks before last Christmas, Ms Shaddick was 23 weeks pregnant and looking forward to fulfilling her dream of becoming a first-time parent with partner Luke Hill, when doctors delivered devastating news.
Scans found a rare cancer, known as leiomyosarcoma — which typically begins in the smooth muscle tissue of the body — had spread to both her lungs.
"It was a really hard day," she says of being told the cancer could not be cured.
"It's a really scary thought knowing you're pregnant with cancer. It's like: 'What will I do?'"
After doing her own research, Ms Shaddick accepted her cancer specialist Catherine Shannon's recommendation to begin chemotherapy while still pregnant, comforted the drugs she would be given were safe for her baby and desperate for the treatment to allow her to spend as much time with Halle once she was born.
Dr Shannon, based at the Mater Cancer Care Centre in Brisbane, said it was safe to use certain types of chemotherapy in the second or third trimesters of pregnancy without adverse effects on the mother or baby.
"We had to use drugs we knew might work for her rare sarcoma and knew they were safe during pregnancy," she said.
A healthy baby after chemo pregnancy
Ms Shaddick, of Jimboomba, south of Brisbane, had chemotherapy infusions every three weeks while still pregnant, losing her hair and feeling fatigued, but otherwise tolerating the treatment well.
"At the end of your pregnancy, a lot of people get exhausted," she said.
"You couldn't really tell the difference between it being the pregnancy or the chemotherapy.
"I didn't have any nausea. I was able to do everything day to day."
Ms Shaddick's labour was induced 37 and a half weeks into her pregnancy and Halle was born "perfectly healthy" on March 9, weighing 2.4 kilograms.
"It was a great experience. I absolutely loved giving birth," she said.
"She's been perfectly fine. No issues, no illnesses. She's an easy baby. She's always pretty much slept through.
"She's just starting to try and crawl, trying to get into everything. She's been an absolute delight and brings so much laughter to us.
"Having her is the purpose of everything.
"I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life, except be a mum and the fact that I get to do that now every day, I'm grateful and enjoy it. It's my favourite thing."
Knowing her cancer is incurable, Ms Shaddick is focused on "living in the now", appreciating the normalities of family life in between her cancer treatments.
She savours simple pleasures such as being able to cook dinner and sitting down to eat with her family.
The 28-year-old has also set a goal of visiting every state and territory in Australia with Luke and Halle before her daughter's first birthday.
They've visited family in Adelaide and friends in Perth, experienced snow in Tasmania and have swum in a waterhole at Litchfield National Park in the Northern Territory.
"I've just got NSW, the ACT and Victoria left to do," Ms Shaddick said.
Enjoying 'right now'
Although her cancer has become resistant to chemotherapy, she will have radiation on a tumour in her pelvis before Christmas and will also start a new targeted therapy – which works in a different way to chemotherapy – before the new year.
"I always just take it as it comes," she said.
"As long as there's a plan in place of what I'm doing … that just keeps us going.
"Being such a rare cancer … there's no road map of what's ahead. I just enjoy right now.
"There's no way … anyone can write a date down on a piece of paper and say: 'This is your expiry',because everybody is unique and will have a different experience.
"We just deal with what's happening at the time as best we can.
"I feel like having Halle, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Apart from having cancer and going through treatment, I'm living life exactly as I feel I should."
Mater Cancer Care Centre clinical nurse consultant Esther White said she felt privileged to help guide Ms Shaddick through her cancer journey, including holding Halle for her when needed during medical consultations.
"Sarah said to me one day, 'You know Esther, I feel guilty because I don't want anyone else to hold Halle. I just want to soak up every moment with her'," Ms White recalled.
"I said to her: That's OK.'
"I am one of the few people who Sarah will let hold Halle outside of the context of immediate family. That's a privilege for me … an incredible honour."
Aside from seeing Ms Shaddick when she comes to the Mater for her cancer treatment, Ms White has started meeting her outside the sterility of the clinic to discuss "memory-making activities".
"We sit and we let Sarah percolate and she often takes time to get to it and then we dig into the tough stuff," Ms White said.
"There's often tears and there's a lot of reflection and talking about fears and talking about what things she'd like to do.
"We've talked about how she can start gathering things for Halle with the support of loved ones."
A hard lump under her rib cage
Ms Shaddick was first diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma in mid-2020 after feeling a hard lump under her rib cage.
Surgeons removed a 1.4 kilogram tumour and with it, her left kidney.
Less than a year later, the cancer returned in her back and thigh. Doctors cut it out again and a few months later, she unexpectedly fell pregnant.
"It was a surprise," Ms Shaddick said. "It was like: 'Great. Here's the baby that we always wanted."
At 12 weeks pregnant, more cancer was cut out of her neck and at 23 weeks, after an otherwise "perfect" pregnancy, she started having trouble breathing.
"I couldn't take deep breaths, it was painful," the young mum said.
"At that point, once it hit my lungs, I'm considered essentially incurable."
Amid the sadness, Ms Shaddick has found great joy in her daughter, now eight months old.
She talks excitedly about wrapping toys for Halle for Christmas, among them a new teddy bear.
